Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody! I hope you are well and cozy, preparing for tomorrow. I'm getting ready to make some homemade clementine and cranberry sauce and a pecan pie (the only two things I can make ahead of time.) I am so thankful to be off work tonight and to get to spend the holiday with my family all day tomorrow...until I have to go to work at ten, anyway.

So...I just wanted to share a bit of our Thanksgiving decor with you. Hopefully you have some downtime tonight to browse through my blog and see what I've done.

Remember these pillows from my Halloween Decor post? All I did was sew some Osnaburg fabric to the striped fabric and then sewed that to the burlap. I used the same stamping technique on the top layer. I just flipped my pillow cover around and sewed it all to the back. Easy peasy!

I've kept the table centerpiece the same as in my Fall Table Decor post. I added the white plates and gold cutlery to the fall napkins for tomorrows feast.

I had these napkins (already folded :) and just added a bit of purple ribbon I had on hand and secured the ends in back with, of all things, a glue dot! It's serving it's purpose well. I just slipped my mom's gold plated cuttlery under the ribbon. Nice and simple. I love how it turned out!

Here is the console table. I didn't know quite what to do here. I didn't want to go overboard, but would have liked to have a nice full display like some I've pinned on Pinterest, but this suits me just fine for this year.

Here are the hobnail jars I pinned on Pinterest and bought immediately. They were so cheap! I got them from Save-On-Crafts. I love them. I filled them with corn kernels and set tricolored pillars on top. Super easy and super cheap!

Just a Better Homes and Gardens centerpiece candleabra.

Here is my barnwood hutch. I kept some the same, but changed it up for Thanksgiving and the Harvest.

I replaced the candy corn for real corn kernels in these candle holders. I had these hurricanes and I wanted something bright green in them. I was going to use real Hedgeapples, but they were going bad. I found these moss balls at Hobby Lobby. They weren't cheap, but I had a coupon. I will use them all year 'round.

I wanted gold letters from Hobby Lobby, but they didn't have what I wanted. They didn't have all the letters in the same finish, so I bought these unfinished letters from Michael's instead. Noah sprayed them for me. I had to think about them for a bit, you can see they weren't finished in some of the other photos. I came up with this, and I love it. I just took more of the purple ribbon, a little burlap, some berry picks, and tied it all with twine. Another easy, cheap project.

 A few more mini moss balls. I just put them in a bowl with some Spanish moss and leaves, and lit some candles in Thanksgiving votive holders.

I used my treenware scoop to hold some more corn and a little grubby candle to finish off the space.

 All in all, I like how it turned out. It was pretty quick, which is good, since I was so short on time. But I got the effect I was looking for. I just want a festive, cozy Thanksgiving with my family. We'll be missing our moms this year, but I take comfort that we have a place to be together to think about them, talk about them, and discuss our many blessings and hopes for blessings for others.

I hope you have a wonderful, grateful, Thanksgiving, wherever you are. If you didn't get a chance yet, I wrote a post for my other blog, confessions of a thinkaholic. It's all about graditude and how to be more thankful in your life.

Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to share with me today!

Nanette

confessions of a thinkaholic: Give a little Thanks, Share a bit of Gratitude...

I have a new post up on my sister blog 'Confessions of a Thinkaholic'. I hope you'll read it and even tell me what you think. I'll be putting up a regular post here later today, so I hope you'll check back, as well. Thanks for reading and sharing with me! N
 confessions of a thinkaholic: Give a little Thanks, Share a bit of Gratitude...:   Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I hope this Holiday finds you all safe and sound. In honor of the Thankful season, this post is ab...

Our last hiking day in Tennessee, last night of vacation

 Well, this is the last post of our vacation. I'm so glad you came along on this "little" tour. On our last day we decided to have an easy day of serene walks and nature hikes and taking pictures. We started out in the morning at Grotto Falls. It was a 1 1/5 mile hike up the mountainside. We started in the crisp dry leaves, found many small streams along the way,and by the time we made it to the falls, we ended up in the slushy snow. The beginning of the trail head was typical forest. Large rocks, huge trees, fallen mossy logs. As we ascended the mountain, it got colder, muddier, and we started to see snow. By the time we got to the falls, there was quite a bit of snow and you had to climb boulders and roots on a very narrow path. It was well worth it, though, and people of all walks of life were visiting that day.

(Remember, you can click the first picture and be taken to a gallery for full size photos that you can scroll through with your arrow buttons. My pics should be bigger, and I'm figuring out why Blogger will only let me do the first two. Bear with me, we'll get it :) 



Large boulders at the entrance of the trail head. Look at the long veins of quartz running through this one. These were all over the mountains. So beautiful.

I fell in love with these mossy logs, stumps and rocks. This is a mere few of the pictures I took.

This water fall was accessible from the back. I took so many photos on that day. Where I'm standing for this photo, is the actual trail. Narrow and very snowy. Everyone was courteous and took turns in this great spot to take their pictures.

Down the road from the trail head to the falls, there was another homestead. These little houses were along the roads in certain areas and just there for you to visit and explore as you wish.

After we stopped by the homestead, we decided to take a hike up the Trillium Gap Trail. Just inside the trail head we came upon this little graveyard. It had this lovely mossy stone wall around it, just a very interesting find.

Well, we walked and walked. It really was a pretty hike, but eventually we realized we were really getting far in. The trail was 2.7 miles in and 2.7 miles back. We had had a plan for nice, slow picturesque nature walks, and didn't want to spend all day on this one hike. Boy, we really moved double-time back out of that trail. It was very strenuous challenging and adventurous.

 Once we were back out, almost two hours later, we stopped and took some pictures on the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail.

This bridge was right close by. It's an actual fishing stream, and we saw two young boys gearing up to do just that.

The Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail is a long one-way loop in to many trail heads, including Grotto Falls. It is designed for you to enjoy a nature trail from your car, with pull-overs for exploring. And, that we did. From the car through the trees I saw a large cascade (almost waterfall). We found a pull-over close by and noticed that their was a trail going way down to these massive rocks with cascades and streams. So, of course, down we went. It was really beautiful.

This is just some of what we saw while we were down there.

Later that evening, once we got closer to the Gatlinburg Welcome Center, we found this very cool bridge and, of course, I needed a picture of it.

There were quite a few more lovely walks we took just up until dark. I will post everything to Smugmug (a photo-keeping site) very soon, now that I've finished this series. Thank you so much for sharing in our adventures to Tennessee. We truly loved it, and I hope you enjoyed these posts as much as I did remembering our trip while posting them.

At the time I'm writing this, Thanksgiving is quickly approaching, next week, in fact. I'll have a post about that, and something for my other blog confessions of a thinkaholic about Giving Thanks and having Gratitude.

I truly appreciate everyone who is reading. and wish you a fantastic, abundant ThanksGiving and hope you will be able to share it with your family, friends, and loved ones.

Have a great day!

Nanette

Gatlinburg on Dwellable

Another sunrise, and long walk in the snow...up to Clingman's Dome.

Another glorious sunrise on our last full day in the cabin. We loved the hiking so much we extended our stay by two days and got a hotel room close to the Parkway so that we could take in as much as we wanted. This day, Thursday, we were off to Clingman's Dome. We drove up the mountainside, a long but beautiful ride through the snow, to get to the trail head of Clingman's Dome.

On our ride up the mountain, we were able to pull over and get this amazing shot of icicles. There were other photographers there, too, with tripods. I'm just a point-and-shoot girl...for now. These were all up and down the mountainside. Talk about a winter wonderland!

Once we arrived, this is what we found. There were plenty of people visiting that day. The snow was knee high. This couple were making a snowman.

The park crew did a pretty good job of clearing the path....

...until about here. It was a long and arduous hike, only 1/2 mile, but seemed so much longer. It was steep and slippery. We didn't fall once, though. I wish I could say the same for a few others. Everyone was in good spirits about it, though.

                                          Totally worth the climb.

         Here we are! Ten years and going strong. Now we can say we've climbed mountains together.

                                       After that drive, and 1/2 mile hike we were at 6,643 feet.

                         On the way back down the road from Clingman's Dome is Newfound Gap road. On it is a parking area with the Newfound Gap Look Out, and the trail head to the Appalachian Trail. Next time....look at all that snow! But if you ever want to get to Maine, the L-O-N-G way, start here. It's only 1,972 miles.

                Here's a little snow covered bridge we found while we were still at an altitude with plenty of snow. There were so many cascades and bridges in the whole area. When they say the Smoky Mountains offer a lifetime of hiking adventure, they are so right. Noah and I took our hiking map and highlight the trails we went on and wrote in the dates we completed them. We will keep this map and take it back with us every time we go and add on to our accomplishments. While I know we will probably
maybe never go all the way to Maine, there is enough to keep us busy and definitely coming back for more.

Thanks so much for reading today!

There's a little more, yet, on this adventure, hope you come along!

Nanette

Gatlinburg Falls Resort on Dwellable